Monday, March 20, 2006

On DAP hunting, films and Nintendo rant

I was typing a post just now when my PC crashed. So everything was gone. No matter, it wasn't an important post anyway - just something about us getting DAPs for jogging.

Ah, what the hell. We wanted to get cheap and small DAPs for jogging and during the weekend we went round Brighton looking for one within our budget (£20-£40) and criteria (256MB-512MB, non-Apple product, cheap, good sound quality).

Finally we found one on eBay - Creative Zen Nano Plus 512MB for £31 sold by Creative in Dublin themselves. These are refurb products but in my experience buying refurb products has never backfired. And at £31, it is considered a steal, especially when compared to the £50 iPod Shuffle.

The Nano Plus (which is basically a rebranded Creative MuVo Micro N200) even has a screen, it isn't in white (or black) and it does not require the use of proprietary software in order to transfer music (it is Mass Storage Class compliant).

More details to follow once we receive our products.

Last weekend saw the release of the new Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on DVD. Because we skipped the theaterical release I went out and rented the DVD today. Haven't watched it yet but will do so tonight. I may even review it if it is good or bad.

Continuing with films, much has been said about V for Vendetta in relations to the London Tube bombings. I don't buy into that. This is a film after all and from what I know, it was filmed before the London bombings. From past issues of Total Film, I knew that the graphic novel author Alan Moore has huge misgivings about the film and has since sealed his disapproval. Seeing that the film was made by the Wachowski brothers I can only imagine that it would be an all style, no subtance kind of film. That is not to say I won't watch it, as I love stylish films - it is just that I doubt it would live up to some of those positive talks that were laid down by film critics. Maybe during the coming weekend.

Metroid Prime: Hunters and Tetris DS has both been released by Nintendo in North America today. As a European resident I am again cursing Nintendo of Europe's inability to gauge demand and release the game earlier. There would be no doubt lose sales due to the hype eroding when both games arrives in May. The owner of a local indie game store has said that March is the typical depressing month for game releases in the UK, because E3 is in May. The arguement is invalid because E3 is an American gameshow, and NoE isn't holding out till May! The fact is it wouldn't be a depressing month for game releases if the game publishers stop treating Europe like a third world country.

All I know is many gamers like me, are importing one of those two games, because they can't wait on NoE's localisation team to finish up. Why is it that Warioware: Twisted!, released in North America in May 2005, has yet to receive a new release date for Europe?

Well I have never been to either Cambridge or Oxford and probably not in the near future. Brighton is nice. Liberal and fun, the night life there is nice with indie bands aplenty. Plus a nice shopping experience with many indie shops. Then there are the excursions to nearby Devil's Dyke and Beachy Head (links on the '2005' header).

Quik, I would if they only let us play WMAs and is MSC compliant. OLED displays are so much more beautiful...